Achieving Serenity

Where'd the Love Go?

Active addiction hurts those around you

At school today we had to write down what we wanted to be when we grow up. I wanted to make telephones, and I thought about what it would be like as I walked home. I pictured a factory with a conveyor belt and being able to play on all different kinds of phones.

I was wrapping up the twelve-minute walk as I closed in on my dead-end street, spotting my dad's car in the driveway. He was recently laid off from his company after working there for thirty years and so it seemed I was going to be able to spend more time with him at home which I was excited about. My favorite part of the day was always around 8 pm when Dad would return home from work. I would always drop whatever I was doing and run to him, grasping my hero's legs in an adoring hug.

I approached my porch and opened the screen before twisting the front doorknob. I entered my familiar palace and saw my dad was watching golf in the living room. I placed my backpack down and crept over to him preparing to scare him, but just before I roared he turned around and gave me a smile.

"What are you doing?!" he asked, feigning disapproval.

"I thought you were a burglar! I'm not used to seeing dads after school!" I jokingly responded.

"Ahh, come here buddy!" We hugged and my mother came in and asked me how school was. I told her it was fine and asked her if I could play video games with Dad. She asked me if I had homework and I said I did, to which she said I must complete all of it before playing.

I let out a soft whine before retrieving my backpack and taking it upstairs to my bedroom. I walked into my poster-filled, freshly-vacuumed sanctuary and unpacked my things onto my kempt bedside. My mind should've been on second-grade math, but I could think about was fun it was going to be to play games with my dad. I couldn't wait to try to beat him at Street Fighter; he was so good at that game. I hope one day I'll be as good as him.

For the next several weeks I played out my identical routine of doing my homework and then playing video games with my dad, but I could tell he was becoming bored. He was spending an increasingly high amount of time on his cell phone while simultaneously playing with me. Even during his heavy distractions, he was able to shamefully slay me with no mercy at every game we played.

It was started to get boring to me too because it started to feel like I was playing a computer. Why couldn't he just get off his phone and play games with me?! Maybe I was being selfish thinking he would always want to play with me. He hardly ever told me no, so surely some of the times he agreed to play with me when he didn't want to.

My dad ended up spending a lot of hours as an Uber driver, and though I was bummed to not see him as much, it was fun to run to him again when he would come home. Dad would always come home at random hours, but I still would make sure to run to him, giving him daily reminders that I love him so much.

One day he came home around seven and I ran to him, but I could tell he was not happy. He continued to walk despite my grasping hug as if I was burdensome to him. I let go and figured he was just having a bad day. After that, I didn't run to him as much.

During dinners and movies, my dad would regularly check his phone to the point where it was actually bothering me. He didn't seem to be talking to me as much, or even making eye contact for that matter. Whenever I asked my dad an open-ended question, he would give short, evasive answers and snap at me if I was talking to him for too long, claiming that he is busy "trading stocks". It appeared as if this man was not the same dad that I grew up with. I couldn't help but think- where'd the love go?

Paulina wished people could be more like dogs. She had three of them and spent most of her time just the four of them at her one-bedroom apartment. As long as she could come home to her dogs, she didn't care about how much she hated her job and everyone she worked with.

Facebook and mobile games were her guilty addictions, but this gradually turned into playing online casino games. Paulina would sit in her recliner, chain-smoke cigarettes and tap-tap away risking her real, hard-earned money. She fantasized about making it big enough to finally tell her boss all the terrible things she thinks about him.

It got to be a problem when she found that she couldn't afford a vet bill due to her gambling. Her youngest dog Kippy was acting reserved and out-of-character before frequently sniffling. She took him into to see a vet and the dog was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection. When it came time to fork over her co-pay, she couldn't get her card to go through. She had to call her sister and ask her to wire money for this emergency.

Paulina felt tremendous amounts of guilt and shame. She figured she had caused the infection with her indoor cigarette smoking and vowed to never smoke around the dogs ever again. Not only that, but her increased gambling habits were making her depressed and certainly were not proving to be profitable. If she doesn't even have enough money to take care of her babies, then what kind of woman was she?

She started attending Gamblers Anonymous meeting and found that she felt very safe there. It was a place where she could talk about her anti-social habits, realizing that her problems weren't so unique after all. After getting a sponsor and reaching her 90-day milestone, Paulina shared to the group about her pathway to abstinence. She talked about how her selfish ways were started to hurt not only herself but her own innocent loved ones. She didn't care about anything or anybody when she was smoking around the dogs, and gambling recklessly.

After the meeting, a newcomer came over and started talking to Paulina, letting her know that her share really helped him out. He had come to realize that gambling was taking over his life, and was started to negatively affect his family. Paulina talked with my man about the importance of sponsorship, as she felt without her own sponsor she would've given up on the program long ago. The man decides to get a sponsor, adamant about changing his ways.

The man went home and gave his son a huge, grasping hug. He loved his son more than anything in the world, and would no longer allow gambling to destroy his family. He would cherish every moment he spent with his son, for it was another grandiose opportunity to show him how much he is loved.